SELWESKI: NFL refs living the union workers' dream

In one tiny yet monumental moment on Monday Night Football, the nation fully realized the value of experience and expertise in a referee, and in the days that followed the true NFL refs basked in the appreciation of millions of Americans in a way that no other unionized workers ever have.

Inexperienced or incompetent replacement workers have become commonplace when a strike or lockout occurs at a workplace, but the public rarely notices. In this case, the replacement refs were making a mess of the nation’s beloved pro football, and even the casual fan was outraged.

When the replacements blew the call on MNF last Monday against the iconic Green Bay Packers, giving the Seattle Seahawks a tainted win on the final play, the replacement refs became a national scandal that had even non-fans talking and tweeting.

The “told you so” moment enjoyed by the real striped shirts surely had union workers across America envious – or perhaps bitter. After all, NFL refs probably face as much public vitriol on a routine basis as anyone in this country – except for maybe members of Congress – and yet they will earn applause upon their return at today’s games.

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Blue-collar workers, at least, have underdog sympathies working in their favor. But they have no hope of a congratulatory homecoming from the public after escaping from the depths of a lockout or a strike.

If you believe that the referees’ situation was entirely different than the struggles of rank-and-file workers facing an impasse with tight-fisted management – well, consider the numbers.

The unionized refs, who we all now know are key to a flourishing NFL industry that collects $9 billion in revenue each year, sought to protect their pension and improve other compensation in a package that amounted to $4 million – an added cost to the team owners of less than 0.05 percent. Instead, the league blundered by going with replacement workers, once known as scabs, and hoped no one would notice.

At a time when private sector union workers are derided in public on a daily basis, even as their numbers and strength are dwindling, the nation’s overwhelming call for the refs’ return is certainly an anomaly.

The Associated Press has documented other recent work stoppages across the U.S. that received virtually no public attention, though expertise and experience were key issues:

In East Grand Forks, Minn., the American Crystal Sugar Co. has locked out 1,300 union workers for months. The company is in no hurry to settle its labor dispute because it hired replacement workers to keep the plants running. Reports indicate that the inexperienced replacements are bumbling with beet slicers and unable to dry pulp in techniques passed down in the Dakotas through generations.

In Houston, a citywide janitor strike was recently ended, giving the workers who made less than $9 an hour a long-awaited 12 percent pay raise. One 37-year-old female custodian who returned to her job cleaning 100 toilets on 10 floors in a downtown Chase Bank tower said she “wanted to cry” when she found bathrooms attended to by the replacement crews resembled stalls in a seedy bar.

In New York, Consolidated Edison locked out 8,000 workers in July and brought in replacements from other states to work power lines and operate the grid. The labor standoff ended just as severe storms hit and threatened power outages. One union official described the near fiasco this way: “Not enough people that knew what they were doing.”

In Illinois, where parents of 350,000 Chicago public school students celebrated the end of the city’s teachers’ strike, a lesser-known labor faceoff began in May at a Caterpillar plant. The heavy machinery manufacturer gained leverage by hiring replacement workers and the strike ended in August in what was widely seen as a victory for the company. Though shipping trucks leaving the plant under the replacement workers were observed to be lightly loaded, the company line was that they were “Doing great.”

The Jimmy Hoffa era of unionism is long gone. Today’s labor unions are far more professional and collaborative with management than the old union bosses could have ever imagined. Quality is a priority.

The Building Trades – carpenters, electricians, plumbers, roofers – engage in state-of-the-art retraining and continuing education. My own union, the Detroit Newspaper Guild, works hard to protect its most talented reporters.

When the 1995 Detroit newspapers lockout hit, the replacement workers who were brought in quickly demonstrated that they were not up to the job. Many of the top reporters and editors at the News and Free Press eventually fled – an exodus that continues to this day – which sparked a plummet in subscribers for both papers.

Yet, most unionized workers have no public platform to expose the “bottom line” mentality of employers that leads to mediocrity. They cannot count on a single moment that jolts public opinion.

Perhaps, the uproar over the NFL refs will lead to a new mentality that causes the public to throw a yellow flag when a company replaces its workers.